The Friday Five

1. What is your most prized material possession? Hmmm. I'm not prone to that sort of thing, any more, but probably my laptop for the sheer amount of data it holds. (I would have said the digital camera at one point, but it's more replaceable, at least.) Of course, I have umpty little sentimental whatnots - stuffed animals various people have given me, old letters, and so on.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest? I'm not sure. I have quite a few toys, books, and stuffed animals from when I was little.

3. Are you a packrat? *innocent* Why no, no, not at all. Yes, of course I am.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum? Neither. I tolerate clutter just fine, and it usually evolves that way as things get used, but I don't find anything unpleasant about a spic-and-span house; I simply don't find it worth the effort to maintain at that level.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there? Okay, now, themes are another matter. Those tend to be disturbing. No, no themes. Stuff where it will be useful. Or where it landed, depending.

Contented consumerism.

So, I finally ran errands tonight. Some necessary, some not. Man that felt good - mostly. Yeah, I spent money, but the few items that were non-necessary I did bloody well on.

First and most expensive stop, medicine. I have four months of birth control and about 250 claritin at this point. ( Further babblings. )

Then to the mall. I wanted shirts. I got shirts - yes, from the men's department. :) ( And babbling about specifics. )

Other than that, I picked up contact lens solution, dental floss, and for truly cheap bliss, two bars of sandalwood soap. I love that stuff, and at Winco I can get it for 48 cents a bar. (I won't buy anything perishable requiring refrigeration/freezing, or packaged in-store, there ever again. That doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to ignore their good prices on non-perishable items!)

Bliss. Absolute bliss. And the cost of the items I purchased for the joy of having them is still only barely over $20 if you count my meal at McDonald's in that category (which is where it really belongs).

I don't like incessant acquiring for the sake of doing so. But every now and then it's fun, and everything I got today I will use, and in most cases, enjoy. (It's rather hard to find dental floss enjoyable, or contact lens solution. I'm quite sure I would loathe their lack, but....)

Ahhh, vanity. Updated my default pic - new shirt! :) The rest of this is travel ramblings....

So, trip. I am packing for my trip this weekend, of course. (I'm also working with Dad to attach my bookcase to the wall stud, and probably to get more bookcases.)

There's the obvious. I mean, I'll want to do laundry and pack work outfits, including my new shirts (*pause to beam happily*). And my laptop has to go. My digital camera, to keep me sane. The books I want to read, and especially the library book that's due back within a few days of my return (hope the trip doesn't get extended!). My notebook. My travel documents including hotel, car rental, and flight information, and the company's we-insure-our-renters form.

There's a lot on the laptop, though. I did the work "packing" today and have the site source current at all sites, including this one; the file I'll need to patch in to fix a reported issue when we get there (that they worked around and found to be only a minor nuisance, whew!); the full current employee roster; the current testing base so I can be a developer if it's really, really boring (never has been yet, but I'm an optimist); that sort of thing.

I've also saved off some web pages and other things I want to read. There are two things I still want to "pack" on the laptop, and I'll get around to them somewhere in here.

1) A month of posts to work on for the documentation. I doubt I'll make it through the whole month, but I want to be able to work on it if the impulse hits.

2) My notes for building for a fantasy game, for a friend. That way, if the urge to describe things hits, I will have the pieces I need to put it together. Just write it, bring it back, run the script, and it will be as if I was connected when I did it.

I have most of the myriad of little stuff you need. I don't yet have it packed, but I have it and can find it.

Organized! It still feels slightly unreal.